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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: Hawkmoon who wrote (87734)3/29/2003 3:44:48 PM
From: JohnM  Read Replies (1) of 281500
 
My take now on the Wilson debate is as follows, Hawk. All of these statements are simply beginning thoughts. As I said before, I've never really thought seriously about Wilson so each of these is something more on the order of a hypothesis than a conclusion.

1. The Wilson administration did not join WWI to "impose" democracy on Germany. Rather it joined allies in their defense. I don't really know when the rhetoric of "making the world safe for democracy," began to be used. But my tentative conclusion is that it did not envision imposing democracy on the Germans rather it was about stopping the invasion of democratic countries and of trying to encourage what members of the Wilson administration might have thought of as preconditions for democracy.

2. The negotiations at the end of WWI did not involve imposing democracy on Germany but were rather about influencing the conflict between the Reichstag (as elected representatives) and the Kaiser in the direction of the former. I take that from the line in the speech but it could easily be contradicted by the activities of the occupying powers.

3. I don't see any evidence that Wilson envisioned, as one of the outcomes of WWI, a sequence of attempts to impose democracy around the globe. The guiding doctrine there was rather self determination which, of course, was readily corrupted into the extension of colonial empires.

You seem to know a good bit about this. Where would you disagree with this formulation?
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